Do you keep asking yourself:
“Why didn’t anyone give me a chance to be heard?” or “Why didn’t anyone ask for our side of the story?”
You may be in a situation where you are the one who has been isolated from the family, and the target of your brother’s or sister’s slander that implicates you in a plot to gain control over your elder’s financial assets of estate, where the direct opposite is true, but no one believes you and your other siblings are unwilling to listen to you as your abusive sibling constantly undermines your attempts to vindicate yourself.
Your efforts to deal with your family yourself will, without certain, be fruitless, and in fact, will even drive them further from you. You won’t know why, but it will be because of how your aggressive sibling is constantly feeding everyone with seeds of doubt about you, discrediting your good name and, indeed, manipulating events that inherently will make anyone listening to what they say about you, to put up a wall between the two of you. That wall will be filled with all sorts of lies that are meant to hurt and sever all ties.
It may be too late to repair the damage that has been done to the family unit, but it may not be too late to still help your elder. It does mean that you have to stand up to and challenge your aggressive sibling in a manner that is totally unexpected. And you will have to endure public scrutiny and closed doors to any attempts you make to gain assistance as it will be fraught with people who have been subjected to false and/or deceptive information if your sibling has had an opportunity to intercede and block you.
It will not be an easy battle. To win it, you have to become detached, resolute in manner, and absolutely precise in your assessment of the situation with as much detail and proof to provide enough doubt in your sibling’s pleas that will be to the contrary.
Author of “The Detrimental Effects of Emotional Abuse: How Emotional Abuse and Emotional Elder Abuse Destroys Us All”, Krumins is the foremost expert on Emotional Abuse and has over 15+ years field and case management experience of domestic violence situations involving Emotional Abuse and Emotional Elder Abuse.
What to know…
Perpetrators of Emotional Elder Abuse are highly charged when being challenged, mainly because any challenge is considered a threat to them – it means they risk having to face consequences for their illicit actions.
To challenge them successfully, you will have to be completely prepared to meet them head on, without blinking. with legal counsel in either family court or intervention specialist.
If the abuse has ascended to a criminal level, they are in violation of the law. To them, this means they have try to stop you from taking any action against them. To you, this means that before meeting with legal counsel, you have to have all your facts in order: you have to be able to prove that the perpetrator, whether it is your brother or sister or a caregiver, has had full intent to undermine the family and defraud your elders of their assets, and yourself of the estate.
Dealing with legal counsel in this manner, will place you back into control. Your legal council will not only have to have all required facts on hand that will allow them to pursue this matter diligently on your behalf. Challenging them with the truth is what you want to do to expose them but they won’t make it easy for you to do that. However, the truth will set you free!
The current situation…
From a legal aspect:
At the present time, the little research that has been conducted has been criticized for conceptual and methodological weaknesses such as unclear definitions of elder abuse or reliance on professional reports rather than victim interviews.
The situation is not without its challenges, but it is not impossible. The situation merely requires a different approach to be taken than the one that has been adopted and used for all of these past years.
The downloadable pdf document is a checklist that provides direction in how to compile a body of evidence of Elder Abuse and will produce a document that anyone can rely on when these cases of Elder Abuse are brought to the attention of social agencies, reporting authorities or legal representatives. It is based on the model presented in the manual but goes further in that it provides facts that will shed light on the “hidden” aspects of Elder Abuse that perpetrators don’t want brought forth into the open that allows the reader to be educate themselves on all aspects of Elder Abuse.
Once this initial task is complete, the information can be used:
Used to:
- Obtain a Restraining Order
- Obtain COURT ORDERED GUARDIANSHIP OF PROPERTY
- Obtain new DM or Trustee
- Freeze funds of suspected/accused perpetrator
- Revoke P of A and reassign it
- Obtain/Revoke Power of Attorney for Personal Care (POAPC)
- To activate SDM
- To obtain ‘Settlement Agreement’
- Evict Perpetrator from the home without elder’s permission
Modified for Emotional Elder Abuse involving fraud by:
- Deceased Elders’ Estate
- Living Elders’ Estate
- Trustee/Caregiver/Accused Perpetrator living in home
Used by:
- Legal Counsel / Legal Aid
- Family Members
- Prosecutors
- Capacity Assessors – Advocacy Center for the Elderly
- Consent and Capacity Boards (if victim is incapacitated)
What to consider…
Currently there is the belief that existing statutes aren’t applicable. They are. There is also the belief that there is lots to be done before any real progress can be made. This is not true. Not doing anything to help your parent leaves them alone, helpless, and in harms way, with the offender, despite the perception that the parent is not under any duress.
There are options:
- You can legally challenge the perpetrator but, if the elder remains in the home alone during this time, it is guaranteed that the perpetrator will continue to pressure the elder on a daily basis to . Their health and livelihood is at stake.
If you are alone in battle:
- The way is fraught with difficulties.
- You have to be fully prepared to deal with all sorts threats, lies, etc.
If you have other siblings who wish to challenge the offender:
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Be prepared to be told only one of you can be defended and pursue any claims against the offender/the estate
Options:
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Try to get a trustee appointed.
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You can file for harassment, sue for intent to defraud
If the offender lives in the home:
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The victim needs to get out of ‘dependency situation’ that the offender created;
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You, as a family member, may need to secure a “settlement agreement” to get the offender out of the house.
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Parents rarely ask the police to remove their adult children from the home. Not out of shame but because of fear of retaliation from the offender, because they are overpowered
KNOW THIS:
There is a right way and a wrong way when you are seeking help for yourself or for your mom or dad. Doing it the wrong way will only help your perpetrator undermine you even further.
Learn to do it right way. Your best resource is knowledge.
What you have to do…
To Show Criminal Intent / Intent to Defraud you have to take into account:
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Family dynamics / interrelations
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Changes over years
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Family’s General Financial situation i.e. changes over the years
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Offender’s history with the family
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Offender’s financial situation
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Offender’s method of contact with family & reason for contact
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Timeline detailing progress isolation of the victim/elder from the family
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Family Milestones and how were they celebrated i.e. before and after
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Decision-making process within family regarding family matters
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Past / current; changes of the years and possible cause
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Incidences of Undue influence (i.e. intimidation, etc.) over the years
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Describe elder’s general state of health i.e. changes over the years
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Care of elder i.e. who is responsible for general care of elder?
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If PofA is needed, who has it?
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Describe elder’s lifestyle i.e. past / current; changes over the years
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Statements/innuendo/lies that have been heard/discovered and spoken by to who?